Clinical and metabolic factors associated with the blood retinal barrier permeability in insulin dependent diabetes mellitus without retinopathy.

The authors assessed a study pointing out the relationship between the permeability of Blood Retinal Barrier (BRB), using vitreous fluorophotometry, and several risk clinical and laboratory data in Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (IDDM). Eighty eyes of 40 IDDM patients were evaluated. Their mean age was 14.8 +/- 3.2 years. Twenty healthy volunteers served as control group (mean age 15.3 +/- 3.2 years). Preexisting diabetic retinopathy was dismissed after funduscopy and fluorescein angiography. The studied risk factors were: age, duration of diabetes, HLA antigens, blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides levels, glycosylated hemoglobin, insulin dose/kg body weight and fructosamine. Vitreous and lens fluorophotometry was performed in both groups (VPRt). The mean VPRt in IDDM patients was 3.56 +/- 1.47 x 10(-6) min-1. In healthy subjects it was 2.53 +/- 0.55 x 10(-6) min-1, establishing a significant difference (p < 0.01). We found a statistically significant correlation between VPRt and duration of diabetes, insulin dose/kg body weight and HbAlc. No correlation was found between VPRt and the rest of parameters. We conclude that vitreous fluorophotometry is a valid method to measure BRB; and the three factors mentioned above are related to the BRB permeability.